Hungary, a country of second-hand clothing stores?

Origo.hu mapped by using the representatives of profession what trip branded piece of clothing has before moving to Hungary. Would you have thought that an entirely industry serves Eastern-European retailers in England? And those sometimes British schoolchildren collect the Hungarians’ clothes?

There are a couple of facts:

• Hungary is the 8^th largest importer of clothes from the UK.
• The British absolutely don’t wear 30% of their bought clothes.
• Most of the dresses come from the containers of aid agencies.
• In Hungary, sometimes clothes are being sorted into 200 categories.
• The training of a sorting worker might take half a year.

According to UN data, the United Kingdom, after the USA, is the world’s second largest exporter of used clothes. Only in 2013, 351 thousand tons of clothes were shipped to different parts of the world value of 380 million pounds that is HUF 166 billion. The main target countries are Poland, Ghana, Pakistan and Ukraine. Hungary is the 8^th largest importer of English second-hand clothes, having bought clothes for about HUF 10 billion two years ago.

There is enough supply, since the distribution of cheap clothes reached unprecedented levels. There is another side of the huge and affordable range: researches show that 30% of the bought clothes were never worn by the English. And that is exactly where the billions second-hand business comes into picture, origo.hu said.

In the UK, the biggest collectors are the charities and they also have shops, where they sell second-hand clothes, and they support the disadvantaged from the proceeds. Alone, however, they couldn’t cope with the task – owner of Easyget, the wholesale distributor of English clothes said to origo.hu.

Zoltan Kovacs and his woman, Anita Szegi  are among those who bring the clothes to Hungary and then passed on to local retailers. According to Kovacs, the charities are unable to process several tons of clothes every day and they also need money, that’s why they sell the clothes.

You cannot just bring the boring stuff to charity shops, but also you can throw into containers. There are some organizations which advertise the collection and they often add bags too. It’s enough to call them and they come to the house.

Lately, “cash for clothes” movement is more and more popular; collection companies generally pay 40 pence for one kilo.

Schools also organize collections like the newsprint actions in Hungary. The students bring clothes, and in return for it, the school gets money.

Easyget Kft., which is sorting clothes, needs about half a year to train a worker. In the company’s premise, lots of people are sorting clothes from trucks, sometimes into 200 different categories. This job requires enormous concentration and constant attention, origo.hu said.

The executive said that even a half pair of shoes can be sold, only needs to know whom. Therefore, if someone goes to a second-hand shop in Hungary, it’s likely to find the products of Zoltan and Andrea there.

Since people are different, there are huge differences between the used clothes. Some people give away even never-worn clothes, while others get rid of them when they too tight or going to bust. The former ones are representing the “cream” category. These are the highest-quality and best-selling dresses, and the most expensive, of course.

Cream category is typically looked by Eastern European wholesalers, while most of the poorer quality goes to Africa and Pakistan.

However, many people complain about the quality of British clothes. The UK can no longer serve the wholesalers due to the huge demand. That is why they use tricks, they even pack household garbage into the bales to be able to sell more.

Nandor Ortel, CEO of Bumerang Kft. said it had been a much despised profession in the first half of the 1900s, but their descendants collected a huge fortune.

based on the article of origo.hu
translated by BA